Pyotr Pavlensky was naked when the police found him in Moscow's Red Square nailed to the icy cobbles in November 2013.

Officers were about to escort the Russian away when they realised he could not be moved.

The self-styled performer, who took part in the protest against the oppression of Russian society, sat as dozens watched.

He was later safely pulled free by experts and treated in hospital before spending a night in a police cell.

ARTIST: He laid in barbed wire in the middle of the city to protest [REUTERS]

“It seemed perfect.”

Pyotr Pavlensky

And now the 29-year-old has finally revealed he did the act based on protests led by Gulag prisoners.

A man in prison told him that Gulag prisoners who were kept in terrible conditions would nail their scrotums to trees to protest.

Mr Pavlensky told the Guardian: "I didn't think much of it at first but then, when I began thinking that the whole country is becoming a prison system, that Russia is turning into a big prison and a police state, it seemed perfect."

He was told that by getting a piercing first the nail could be safely entered into the hole.